


got a crush on tragedy

by shamecorner



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Cunnilingus, Dom/sub Undertones, Dominant Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Drug Use, F/M, Past Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Past Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Praise Kink, Sub Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:35:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25776733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamecorner/pseuds/shamecorner
Summary: A door creaks open behind the counter. The shopkeeper smiles at a languid slouch of a woman, leaning against the doorframe.Jaskier is struck with the half-remembered sensations of a hand at his crotch and a knife at his throat. “Yennefer?”Her gaze flicks to Jaskier. The nonchalance in her expression melts away, replaced by a scowl.“Fuck,” she says.Yennefer and Jaskier reunite, by chance, before the Battle of Sodden.(Or: Yennefer bullies Jaskier into becoming her lab partner, and then they do some drugs.)
Relationships: Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 9
Kudos: 99





	got a crush on tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> Based mostly on the Netflix show, with some influence from the books. Set in some vague bit of time between the big mountain breakup and the Battle of Sodden.
> 
> Please be aware that the drug use is very inaccurate (eh, it's a fantasy setting) and gratuitous. Also, this got a little kinkier than I thought it would. Whoops! I'll put more detailed warnings in the end notes.
> 
> Title comes from the song Sugarboy by St. Vincent.

It’s only after he almost trips on one of the many feral cats yowling over the din of the Gors Velen fish market that Jaskier realizes he has, essentially, gone to the fucking coast.

He shuffles gracelessly backwards, knocking the shoulder of someone who stinks like pitch and seaweed. The stranger’s cursing blends with the hiss of the ungrateful tabby, which seems to have interpreted his flailing as some kind of threat display, so he mutters apologies that could apply to either injured party and flees for the main street.

Gors Velen is shielded by a crescent of tower-studded walls, open only to the harbor and the shimmering teal ribbon of the ocean beyond. Its Elven origins show through in places: elegant pale stone, an organic ramble of streets and plazas, and roofs rebuilt to imitate their original tile, glinting with the color of sea glass. The Isle of Thanedd, home to Aretuza, is the only fracture in the city’s idyllic facade. No Elven architecture nor lively arts industry can neutralize the ominous loom of Aretuza on the horizon. He tries not to look at it.

But Jaskier’s room was blessed with a quaint little balcony, facing the harbor, and he’s often compelled to strum wistful half-songs into the salt-edged breeze, watching the sea churn and crash into the rocky edges of Thanedd, grayed by distance and mist.

He squints through the piercing sunlight. The sky is a bright, cloudless stretch, the streets are swollen with a chaos of merchants and townsfolk, and there’s no space in his mind for grief or self-reflection or Destiny’s sinister rumblings. On maps, the Continent’s coastline is a long, meandering sprawl—impossible to avoid. His proximity to it is irrelevant.

In an effort to stop sweating through his doublet, Jaskier wanders towards the shadow under an awning. A squat building hides in the shade. He ducks under a fringe of bundled herbs, hung to dry, and peers into the clouded windows, catching outlines of jars and the persistent odor of incense. An apothecary, then. Salves and elixirs and miscellaneous lotions for which he has no use. He turns a critical eye to his cuticles, finds nothing wrong with them, and goes inside anyway.

There are no other customers. A woman ties stalks of lavender into neat parcels behind the counter. She’s as squat as the building, thick forearms, broad hands.

“Can I help you?” she asks, without looking up.

“Just browsing, thanks,” says Jaskier, perusing a shelf of conspicuously unlabeled oils.

The apothecary’s stock is a wild jumble, and he is reluctantly charmed. He’s mostly inside to avoid the sun and the stench of fish, but he considers the possibility that he might genuinely need a honey-scented hand lotion, lifting the pot to his nose. 

Before Jaskier cracks the lid, he smells something utterly disorienting. Florally bitter with a fruit-sweetened tang.

He jolts, sets the lotion down. Could’ve been mislabeled.

“Zosia,” calls a voice—a familiar voice. Wry, and wary, and almost kind. A voice like a snake coiled beneath a rosebush. “Are you all out of charcoal?”

A door creaks open behind the counter. The shopkeeper smiles at a languid slouch of a woman, leaning against the doorframe.

Jaskier is struck with the half-remembered sensations of a hand at his crotch and a knife at his throat. “ _ Yennefer _ ?”

Her gaze flicks to Jaskier. The nonchalance in her expression melts away, replaced by a scowl.

“Fuck,” she says.

Yennefer’s clothes are simple—trousers, vest, blouse—but each piece is a hungry, light-devouring black, given form by silver stitching. It gives her the aura of a sexy and secretly tragic assassin from one of Jaskier’s trashy novels. She stalks past the counter with a predator’s glare.

“I’m just gonna—go—” says Jaskier, spinning on his heel and pointing at the door.

His trajectory is interrupted by a sharp yank to the collar.

“Guh,” he says, fumbling backwards for the second time that day, “alright, I’m  _ not _ going, sweet Melitele—”

Yennefer hauls him to the back room and slams the door with an unnecessarily magical twirl of her hand. She shoves him into a narrow strip of wall—the only space that isn’t blocked by a series of long tables. The room must be a lab, bristling with alchemical instruments and delicate glassware.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” says Jaskier.

Yennefer rewards the quip with a tightening grip in his shirt. “What are you doing here, Jaskier?”

“Well—I—I don’t know, living?” he says, sweeping his arms out in an indignant gesture. He brushes a jar perched on a nearby table, and it topples over, shattering.

Jaskier flinches at the trickle of dark liquid soaking into the floorboards. “Shit, sorry—is that going to kill me?” He lifts a shoe before it can spread to his sole. The stark smells of mint and medicine slap him in the nose.

Yennefer rolls her eyes. She clears the spill with another waved hand. “Please clarify what you mean by  _ living _ ,” she drawls.

“I’m entertaining the masses with tales of heroic exploits,” he says, loftily vague.

She pushes her knuckles threateningly into his sternum.

“Ah, fine, fine, I took up a residency at a tavern, okay? I wanted to stay in one place for a while, and Gors Velen seemed—” Safe. Secure. Too far north to feel the thundering stomps of Nilfgaard in its inexorable creep across the Continent. “—nice.”

“A residency at a tavern?” Her skeptical tone needles him. “What sort of institution would pay to suffer your songs, night after night?”

“A very respectable one,” spits Jaskier.

“Which tavern?”

Jaskier swallows. “The—The Unlaced Corset.”

Yennefer raises a brow.

“Oh, don’t start,” he says. “Listen, I could ask you the same thing—what the hell are you doing in the back of an apothecary? Don’t you have—I don’t know,  _ machinations _ ? Sinister plans to whisper into powerful ears?”

“I’m keeping an eye on the political situation,” snaps Yennefer.

“Political situation?” The spires of Aretuza skim across his mind. “Oh—the Brotherhood, is that it? Are you watching from afar? Did they not invite you into their big scary witch club?”

“I will  _ gut  _ you,” she says, “you sad, sad little man.”

“ _ Little _ ?” splutters Jaskier.

Yennefer tilts her head. “ _ That’s _ the part of that sentence you took issue with?”

Jaskier huffs. “Just—let me go, alright? Let’s discuss this like non-murderous adults.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” says Yennefer, but she drops her hold. “If you start spreading word of my presence here, I’ll feed your entrails to the cats.”

Her hand trembles, once, which is more unsettling than the threat.

“I won’t say a word,” promises Jaskier, straightening his shirt. “I value my—entrails.”

“Good.” Yennefer steps away, abandoning him for the alchemical instruments, and busies herself by unscrewing a round container from a hollow stalk of glass.

She swirls the liquid inside, holding it to the light. “Why are you still here, Jaskier?”

There’s a crease between her brows. Jaskier’s limbs go fuzzy, like he’s looking down from a great height. He thinks of harsh white sunlight and jagged peaks.

“I was—I wanted—I was wondering,” he says, tripping over his words, “if maybe you’ve heard anything from—”

“No,” spits Yennefer, “I haven’t.”

“Well,” says Jaskier, “I haven’t either, so—”

“ _ Leave _ , Jaskier.”

“Yep, right, leaving now,” he says, arms raised in surrender.

He makes for the door with one last glance over his shoulder. Yennefer’s hunched over a flask, but he can see the corner of her mouth, twisted like a wound.

—

Jaskier plays something bittersweet and eloquent at the tavern, which goes over poorly, so he stuffs the melancholy verses down the back of his throat and switches to jigs. Afterwards, a pair of suntanned men send him a drink (he clarifies with the bartender, who confirms that yes, it’s from  _ both _ of them) but he lifts the flagon in gratitude and slips upstairs, sipping ale on his balcony, watching the sunset’s orange fingers splay over the ocean.

A few days later, he’s picking through street stalls, thumbing folds of jewel-toned silks, when he catches a whiff of the same mint-medicine smell from the spilled jar in the apothecary. Jaskier, never one to fight the whims that buffet him through life, follows the trail to a nearby table. The sharp aroma emanates from a pile of canvas pouches.

Scent-induced memory flashes in his mind. Structured brows, pinched in the middle. The tugged edge of a painted lip.

“Excuse me,” he asks, lifting one of the bags, “do you have this in a, er, drinkable form?”

The merchant frowns. “Camphor bark? You don’t want to drink that, son.”

“I meant—does it come in a liquid?”

“No,” says the merchant, hesitant, “but you can make an extract from the oil.”

Jaskier taps his lip. “How much?”

“I’ll take five orens for the bag, so long as you promise to use it topically.”

Jaskier hands over the coins, tossing the canvas absently in his free hand, and winds through the streets until he finds the little apothecary in the shade.

Zosia is scrawling something into a ledger when he enters. She looks up this time, suspicion souring her face.

“Hello,” trills Jaskier, “what a lovely afternoon, hm? How goes the apothecary-ing?”

She brushes a dark curl behind her ear. “What do you want?”

Jaskier scans the store, noting a woman browsing the bundles of incense along the windowsill. He leans over the counter and lowers his voice. “Is—is  _ she _ here today?”

“Don’t see how that’s any of your business,” says Zosia.

“It’s not, really,” says Jaskier. “It’s just that I—broke something, and I—”

The door to the alchemy lab swings open. Yennefer stands in the threshold, arms crossed.

“It’s fine, Zosia,” sighs Yennefer. She retreats into her forest of glassware. The door remains open; he takes it as a beckon.

“Right,” says Jaskier, “great,” and he slides past the counter, clutching the bag of bark.

The door closes, untouched, as soon as he steps into the lab. He only jumps a little. Yennefer’s curling her fingers in some complicated pattern, making a pale flame leap higher and lick against the bottom of a glass sphere. A blue-black concoction bubbles inside.

Yennefer snaps. The fire lowers and widens, highlighting her profile in dull gold. “Are you going to tell me why you came back,” she says, studying the inky fluid, “or are you just here for an alchemy lesson?”

“Well, no, I actually, um.” Jaskier shifts his weight to his other foot. He lifts the bag. “I brought you something.”

Yennefer straightens. “You what?”

“I found this, at the market, and I know it’s not the exact same but it smells like whatever was in that jar—” 

She snatches it and unties the twine. Her movements are hasty, her eyes keen. Raw, unrehearsed curiosity. Jaskier wonders if she receives many gifts.

Yennefer’s brows twitch. She tucks the bag in her pocket. “I have to give you some credit,” she says. “You’ve correctly identified the base component of safrole.”

“Amazing,” says Jaskier. “I have no idea what that means.”

“Don’t think too hard. You’ll get frown lines.”

“I’m aging like a fine wine, Yennefer,” he retorts, swift as an instinct.

Yennefer glances back at the fire, impatient. “Is that all you wanted, Jaskier?”

“Well, kind of,” he says. “It’s an apology. A bag of apology bark. I’m apologizing.”

“For what?” Her cynical stare pierces him like an arrow.

Jaskier summons up images of a dragon’s corpse, of Nilfgaardian boots, of a Cintran banquet and shipwrecks on Skelligan rocks and fragile, motherless things. He contorts them, crams the mess inside a few painless and totally inadequate words.

“For the jar I broke,” he says.

Yennefer’s mouth flexes into something ambiguous—almost a smile. She turns to pick up a mortar, piled high with crystalline flakes, and a pestle, pressing them both into Jaskier’s hands.

“If you really want to apologize,” she says, “grind this for me, and don’t talk.”

“Can’t make any promises about that second part,” he says, but he sets the mortar down and bends into the task. The rasping stone soothes his ear.

When he takes the stage that night, he spots a tumble of raven hair between the usual dockworkers and rabble-rousers, but that really could be anyone.

—

A couple of weeks crawl by. Jaskier has a rhythm: he snorts awake at noon, struts the city for inspiration, finds very little, purchases a trinket he doesn’t need, and plays the same three jigs on rotation for the patrons of The Unlaced Corset. The landlord claps him on the back and calls him a blessing, digressing at length about the boost to his business, but Jaskier sees the harried eyes and dirt-stained hands of southern refugees, more and more each day, and he knows that the real blessing isn’t his music. During those conversations, he feels like one of the slimy things that they scrape off the sides of warships.

One night, Jaskier finishes his set a few encores deep, aware that he’s missed the sunset by a longshot. He decides to brave the bar instead of hiding on his balcony; at this hour, its only offer is a view of whale oil lamps and the eerie glimmer of Aretuza.

He weaves through the crowd. The sea of practical linens parts to reveal Yennefer of fucking Vengerberg, poised against the bar with the veiled aggression of a sheathed weapon.

“Jaskier,” she greets, raising her cup.

He freezes, starts to backpedal, sighs through his nose, and settles onto the stool beside her.

“I assumed, after you threatened me with grievous bodily harm, that you were trying to be somewhat more incognito than this,” says Jaskier. He signals to the bartender, who nods, then jerks his head at Yennefer and scrunches his face into an unspoken question. Jaskier shrugs.

“The  _ Unlaced Corset _ isn’t exactly a hotbed of political intrigue,” scoffs Yennefer.

“Will you get over the name? I didn’t pick it.” Jaskier accepts his wine from the bartender and takes a grateful swig.

“Oh, I’m sure you would’ve gone for something far more tasteless,” says Yennefer.

Jaskier props his chin in his hand. “Why am I being graced with your presence? Is there a special occasion?”

“In a sense.” Yennefer brushes a lock of hair behind her shoulder. “I received some troubling news today.”

There are a myriad of unpleasant and equally probable scenarios that branch from the label of “troubling news”. Too many dangling, precarious uncertainties. 

Jaskier takes another drink. “Let’s skip the dramatic pauses, shall we? You’re just as bad as—” Shit. Nope. He bites his tongue and recovers with a prissy cough. “As my great aunt.”

Yennefer ignores his stutter. “Reliable sources inform me that Nilfgaardian scouts have been spotted in the Marnadal Stairs,” she says, tracing a finger around the rim of her cup. “And in Sodden, too. Tightening the noose around Cintra as we speak.”

“Oh,” says Jaskier. Anxiety prickles up his spine and latches around his throat. “That  _ is _ bad. Troubling, even.”

Yennefer nods. Her cascade of hair gleams when she moves, reflecting the lamplight.

Jaskier takes a long gulp of wine. “So you came here to, what, drown your sorrows?”

“To warn you, Jaskier,” says Yennefer. There’s not a hint of scorn in her voice, painted over with something opaque and somber. “You may want to migrate farther north.”

Jaskier blinks. His mouth goes slack. 

“And then to drown my sorrows. Not that it was an effective attempt—this wine tastes like slightly alcoholic vinegar,” she says, wrinkling her nose at her cup. 

_ There’s _ the scorn—a conversational anchor, a known quantity—but it comes in too late, and Jaskier feels his evening strain as it veers off course.

“Well, I don’t suppose you have anything better?” he asks. The question could be rhetorical.

Yennefer sets her cup on the bartop.

“I do,” she says.

—

Yennefer leads him back to the apothecary. She’s staying in an apartment just above the storefront, though its dimensions clearly exceed those of the actual building. It’s one massive room, with a clawfoot bathtub, blood-colored curtains, a wall-mounted warg’s head, and a bed large enough for five. The luxury of the space is muted by its clutter—overturned cups, limp piles of clothing. At least four hairbrushes.

There’s a sort of cushion-lined hollow in the floor, and Jaskier frowns at it, trying to deduce its use, until Yennefer kicks off her heels and settles into the pillows.

Jaskier climbs cautiously into the hollow. “You haven’t had any orgies in here, have you?”

Yennefer waves two fingers, and a pillow leaps up to smack him in the face.

“Just asking,” mutters Jaskier.

“You should be more polite to your host,” says Yennefer. “I’m offering a choice of refreshments tonight: my stash of Toussaint red, or something far more interesting.”

“By interesting,” says Jaskier, “do you mean fun, or dangerous, or both?”

“It’s quite harmless.” Yennefer reaches up to pull pins from her hair.

Jaskier shifts, bouncing between vicious curiosity and a twinge of fear.

“I’ve got an elixir that will sober you up, if you hate it,” says Yennefer, a bit garbled around the pins in her mouth.

Jaskier drums his fingers over his knee. “Fuck it,” he says, “give me the interesting one.”

There’s a raised slab of marble in the center, acting as a table. Yennefer reaches past a stray goblet and lifts an ash-stained bowl. She murmurs a few Elder words, and dry herbs manifest in the space above the bowl, igniting as they fall. Thick, white smoke wafts into the air.

“Yennefer,” he says, slowly, “this isn’t like—like the weird sex smoke, in Rinde?”

She rolls her eyes, exaggerating so profoundly that Jaskier’s ego lets out a little whimper. “Jaskier, if I wanted to have sex with you, you’d know.”

“Right, yeah, I figured,” he says.

The smoke carries a greasy sweetness that coats his lungs. He coughs sheepishly into his fist.

“So, what exactly am I inhaling right now?” he wheezes.

“A blend of healing herbs,” says Yennefer, unspooling over the cushions. The draped fabric of her skirt clings to contours like a liquid. 

Jaskier’s brain feels buoyant, knocking up against the top of his skull. He coughs again.

Yennefer points at the table. A cut-crystal glass appears. “For your poor singer’s throat,” she coos, and he’s certain that he’s being mocked, but something about it prompts a skitter of goosebumps down the back of his neck.

Jaskier grabs the glass, sniffs it, and takes a sip. If it isn’t water, it’s a very good imitation. He tips his head back and chugs. 

Yennefer snorts. “You’re not one for half-measures, are you?”

“Never have been,” agrees Jaskier. He unbuttons his doublet and stretches his feet out, wriggling into the cushions. “Why else would I travel the Continent with someone who punched me in the stomach not an hour after we’d met?”

“Brain damage?” suggests Yennefer.

“Eh, maybe,” says Jaskier.

Glistening shapes slither out from under his eyelids, zigzagging across his vision.

Jaskier bolts upright. “Oh, fuck, sorry. I mentioned Geralt.” He slaps a hand over his mouth, mumbling through fingers. “Shit. I did it again.”

“Jaskier, relax,” says Yennefer. “I’m not going to faint at the mere thought of him.”

“You don’t want to incinerate me?” asks Jaskier. “Not even a little?”

“No need,” says Yennefer. “He isn’t mine. I’m not his. His actions, past or future, are none of my concern.” The words march neatly, like an incantation. She tilts her head back, her eyes fixed to some point beyond the ceiling.

“He tried to blame me when you left, on the mountain,” says Jaskier, picking at a loose thread in his sleeve. “So I figured you might also see things that way.”

Yennefer rolls to her side, squinting at him. “I don’t understand. You were inconsequential to that discussion.”

“I feel like I should be hurt by that, but you’re  _ right _ , is the thing.” Jaskier pushes a clumsy hand through his fringe. The sensation of his own palm on his forehead ripples—he feels like a banged gong.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” concludes Yennefer. She rolls to her back again. Her hair is a black halo, sticking staticky to the cushions. “Both of our claims to Geralt of Rivia are equally null and void.”

“You make him sound like a piece of property in a divorce,” says Jaskier. “Hey, Yennefer, can we get divorced? I think it would be fun if we were divorced.”

“Sure, Jaskier,” she murmurs. 

The loose thread stretches and dances, twining over Jaskier’s fingertip in infinitely recurring loops. “You can have Geralt in the divorce,” he decides. 

Yennefer answers with a neutral hum. Her eyes are wreathed in a smear of plum shadow, and the color wavers as it rises into the smoke.

“I do miss one specific piece of his property, though, if you catch my meaning.” Jaskier says. He flashes a vulgar grin, but it wilts almost instantly. “You did know that we were fucking, right?”

She shoots him a look, dripping with condescension. “Obviously.” 

“Oh,” says Jaskier, “that’s—good. That you knew.”

Silence.

“Gods, his  _ cock _ , though,” says Jaskier.

“You just never stop talking,” says Yennefer, with faint astonishment, like she just watched a dog do a very smart trick.

“I’m bonding with you,” he declares, gesturing grandly, “via our shared experiences, Yennefer, keep up.”

Yennefer smirks. “I preferred his mouth, actually.”

Jaskier’s imagination condemns him to a vision of Yennefer, kneeling over Geralt’s face as he licks her in a rapturous stupor, spurred on by her shudders and praises. Heat pours through his body in a glowing flood. He flings out a hand to grab his glass, remembers that he drank all the water, and swipes through his sweaty hair instead.

“Oh, did you,” says Jaskier, trying for apathy and landing closer to panic. “Fascinating.”

“It’s a pity, really, that he forced us together so callously,” says Yennefer. “I wasted all that time training him up. He got quite good at it.”

The image shifts to Yennefer on the edge of a palatial bed, Geralt bowed reverently between her legs, her commanding grip in his hair, her violet eyes blazing. The scene is simultaneously hazy and punishingly vivid.

All the blood leaves his brain in a hot rush.

_ Good boy _ , whispers the imaginary Yennefer.

Jaskier sits up, draws his knees to his chest. He leans forward and hugs his legs like a lifeline. “That, uh. Hm. That is really too bad.”

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” The real Yennefer props herself on an elbow. Her eyes glitter with mirth.

“No,” grits Jaskier, “we’re just  _ bonding _ , in a  _ friendly _ way.” He gropes for a safer topic. “So—what have you been making in the back of the apothecary? Poison? Moonshine? Apple juice?”

Yennefer raises her brows, but she accepts the change of subject without comment. “I’m testing a theory,” she says. “It’s nothing of importance. Just something to keep my hands busy.”

“What theory?” Jaskier asks, jerking his disobedient thoughts back into line. Thankfully, his brain provides a new spectacle: each shadow in the room grows glossy feathers.

“I’m synthesizing a compound that should have psychoactive properties,” says Yennefer.

“That seems unnecessary,” says Jaskier, blinking, “because your hair is birds.”

Yennefer twists a strand around her index finger. It caws. “It’ll work better than this,” she says, dismissive.

“Huh.” Jaskier glances at the ceiling, covered in a flock of wheeling black shapes. “Is this your hobby? Do you have hobbies?”

She purses her lips, contemplating. “Taxidermy.”

“Oh, sure,” he says, “ _ that _ makes sense.”

_ You could stuff me _ , his brain supplies.

Sweat beads at Jaskier’s temple. He shrugs out of his doublet, feeling feverish. “Is it about—a fascination with death? Or do you just like animals?”

“It’s a way to keep things that aren’t meant to be kept,” says Yennefer. “An insult to entropy.”

She traces a thumb over her wrist. For a moment, her skin is translucent, fiery and golden like amber, shot through with long-dead petals.

“I’ve been meaning to add a troll to my collection,” she says, giving Jaskier a deliberate once-over.

“Sometimes you just say things, and I wonder if it’s a cry for help,” says Jaskier.

Another pillow flies into his face. He places it surreptitiously over his lap.

“Very mature,” he says. “Should you be using magic while you’re on— _ healing herbs _ ?”

“I’ll do what I like,” says Yennefer.

Jaskier nods. “Truer words were never spoken.”

Time lurches unsteadily forward. They trade lukewarm jabs, and Jaskier watches the birds coalesce into a night sky, gleaming with iridescent galaxies. Eventually, the stars fade, and his eyelids droop. He stands, bends into a bow, bids Yennefer goodnight with flowery, nonsensical words, and makes for the door.

Jaskier forgets his doublet in Yennefer’s nest of cushions. He spends the entire walk home convincing himself that it was unintentional.

—

It takes six days, two lovers, and a lot of masturbation before Jaskier musters up the courage to retrieve his doublet. Even then, it was only because his latest lover (Magda, a painter) teased him for being chickenshit. The wine had made him too maudlin and he’d gone on for a concerning length of time about golden eyes, then violet eyes, then the tragedy inherent to cycles of violence and the people who lash out to hide their wounds. Magda had said some rubbish about how he was “clearly processing a lot right now” before taunting him mercilessly and falling asleep.

He strides into the apothecary the next morning, spine steeled, and Zosia only spares him a sleepy glance before she says, “She’s not here.”

“I—oh.” Jaskier scratches the back of his neck. “D’you know when she’ll be back?”

“No.” Zosia turns to a shelf and starts stocking it with tiny green bottles.

“Now, you don’t have to answer this,” says Jaskier, “but have I done something to offend you, or—”

The front door rattles open. A horrible stench suffuses the shop, like metallic vomit. Yennefer steps inside, wielding a bloodstained sack and a wry smile.

“The poor bastard’s going to need to find something else for his carnival,” she says, addressing Zosia, who responds with a grin.

“Uh, hi,” he says, “what the flying fuck is that?”

“Not flying anymore,” says Yennefer. She swerves past him, heading for the back room. “I could use some help.”

Jaskier looks at Zosia. She shakes her head. He points to himself. She nods.

He follows Yennefer into the lab. She slaps a pair of wax-coated gloves to his chest and clears a space on one of the tables.

“Some idiot in the market was trying to pass off a wyvern as a basilisk,” she explains, dumping the contents of the sack, “so I stole it while he slept.”

A yellowed, fleshy mass splats onto the table.

“Or, well, part of it,” says Yennefer.

Jaskier fans himself with the gloves, fighting the bile that creeps up his throat. “Yennefer, I really, genuinely just came by to get my doublet back—”

“I’m sure you did,” she says, “but you’re here now, aren’t you?”

Jaskier sets a hand on his hip, fingers tapping.

Her grin is unapologetically toothy. One of her canines is slightly longer than the other.

“Fine,” he says, all resistance fracturing into pathetic shards. “Fine! Great. This is exactly how I wanted to spend my morning.”

“Put on the gloves, then,” says Yennefer. “I need to extract its stomach acid.”

The entire process is vile, and Jaskier indulges himself with some of the most justified complaints he’s been able to make all month, but there’s a thrumming energy to Yennefer that hooks him into the work. A bit manic, maybe, but he’s not familiar with her baseline level of enthusiasm. She’s captivating. Jaskier feels—captive.

Trips to the apothecary become the newest addition to Jaskier’s rhythm. Yennefer tends to rope him into some mundane or disgusting task; in return, he steals a few precious moments of conversation with someone who understands his restlessness, mirrors it back to him in a way that’s probably a little unhealthy, but acutely satisfying, like cracking knuckles. Grim omens are teeming on the horizon, so he might as well bitch to Yennefer of Vengerberg about the time that Magda made fun of his shoes. If her domineering attitude happens to scratch at some strange itch, or if her rare praise sparks shivers—well, he figures there are worse coping mechanisms.

—

Jaskier bursts into the lab with a rant coiled on his tongue.

“You will not  _ believe _ ,” he says, already tugging on the wax-coated gloves, “the sheer audacity of some of these snobs, Yennefer, it’s like I’m back in Oxenfurt—if I’m ever called derivative again by that pompous lout I’m going to  _ derive _ his head from his body—”

“Shut up, Jaskier,” snaps Yennefer. “We’ve reached a critical stage.”

She’s bent over one of her glass spheres, which is clamped to the outlet of another container, which is capped by a funnel, and at that point his eyes glaze over. A pearlescent liquid bubbles in the sphere.

“The acid,” she says, pointing to a flask at her side. “Feed it into that beaker— _ slowly _ , Jaskier, by drops.” Her other hand holds a frenetic blue flame. She circles it along the bottom of the glass, its flicker reflecting in her severe gaze.

He stumbles reflexively into action, squeezing a dropperful of acid into the beaker one drip at a time. Navy fluid coats the bottom, fizzing and spitting with each plink. Cloudy gouts of gas flow from the join between the glassware to the sphere.

“I know I’ve asked this before, but you’re really going to have to reassure me that this won’t explode,” pleads Jaskier.

Yennefer doesn’t respond, locked into a frenzied kind of concentration, tense at the joints and barely breathing. Her hair is pinned into a bun, but a few locks spring free. Delicate curls graze the back of her neck.

The pale liquid starts to produce opaque chunks, drifting to the bottom of the sphere like snowflakes. Yennefer’s fire persists, so Jaskier keeps dripping acid, enthralled by her tight, shimmering focus.

Soon, the snowy substance blankets the bottom of the sphere. Yennefer clenches her fist, snuffing the fire. She braces herself against the table, inhales, exhales.

Jaskier sets the dropper aside. “Yennefer?”

She whips around, close enough for her hair to smack him, if it was down. “It’ll have to dry, but it’s done,” she says, and a grin splits her face, and her eyes shine like crystals, like glass, like flame. Black strands stick to her forehead, held by a thin sheen of sweat. 

There’s a tiny smudge of lipstick on one of her front teeth. That’s what does him in.

Jaskier surges forward, crackling with the echo of Yennefer’s fervor. Their lips meet, and for a high, trembling crescendo of a moment, it’s almost a kiss.

Then Jaskier’s clumsy gloved hand pats her cheek, as if to tilt her closer, and the incongruity of it whacks him across the face, shattering him out of that almost-moment. He scoots backwards, wary of the glass.

“Fuck, I—I’m—sorry?” he stutters, ripping off the gloves.

Yennefer’s brow is quirked, but only minutely. The rest of her expression is inscrutable. Panic writhes in his chest.

It was only a matter of time; he’ll always find something else to break.

Jaskier turns tail and runs.

—

He’s tired of batting back the mournful ballads that stir under his ribs, and he’d made up his mind to force the crowd to sit through at least two of them, but that night, nearly the entire tavern is packed with refugees. They huddle furtively over their plates and cups, and when Jaskier studies their stony faces he can smell the ash of torched villages, hear the screams. 

He makes a last-minute switch to his repertoire of extremely bawdy sea shanties.

So the world is crumbling, and he kissed Yennefer of Vengerberg. Jaskier hops off the stage with a map unrolled in his mind. Could he make it to Skellige? Islands must be safer, somehow, cradled in the perilous swath of the ocean. He could learn to embrace it. He could surround himself with a different deadly thing—a new devil to know—and hope that the Nilfgaardian ships splinter against the rocks.

Nobody buys him a drink; nobody has the coin. He shoves his purse at the bartender, persuades him to cover a round for the whole tavern, and trudges upstairs, seeking the familiarity of his balcony and the fiery bloom of the sunset.

Jaskier drapes himself over the balustrade, settling in for an evening of unreserved moping. A gull screeches at him from a nearby rooftop. He sticks his tongue out.

Then, there’s a knock at his door.

“Fuck off, Marek—if it’s not enough, just take the rest from my gods-damned wages, will you?” he calls, keeping a hostile eye on the gull.

Another knock.

“I’m having a  _ moment _ . Go away.”

The knocks become an insistent barrage.

Jaskier launches himself upright and stomps to the door. “You’re a real prick, Marek, I’m taking back all the nice things I said about your— _ oh _ .”

He yanks the door open, and it isn’t the bartender—of course it isn’t the bartender. It’s Yennefer of fucking Vengerberg.

She slips past him with no preamble, arms crossed. He fumbles the door shut.

There’s a floundering beat of silence.

Jaskier grabs a random thought and shoves it out of his mouth. “If you wanted to come in, couldn’t you have just—poofed?” he asks, miming the hypothetical poof with his hands.

Yennefer glares.

“Yes, Jaskier, you’re right, I should use an extremely powerful spell of Elven origin right under the Brotherhood’s fucking nose,” she says. “It’s a wonder that they haven’t snatched you up for Ban Ard yet.”

Jaskier taps his foot, trying to calm his frayed nerves. “I’m going to be honest, Yennefer, I have no idea what you’re doing here, after—well. After I made an idiot of myself.”

She stalks closer. Her violet gaze pins him, and he feels like something stiff and spread-eagled, a specimen in a glass case.

“Well, you see,” she says, “I was about to conduct a test, but my lab rat scurried away.”

Yennefer is shorter, but in heeled boots, it’s not by much. He can see the creases in her lips, the stray flecks of mascara dusting her eyelids. If he could unlock his spine just enough to bend down—

She uncrosses her arms and raises a vial in front of Jaskier’s nose.

“Oh, ” he says, gulping. “We’re going to do drugs about it, then? Instead of talking?”

“It didn’t look like you were trying to  _ talk _ ,” teases Yennefer.

“Great Melitele, could you be less of an enigmatic disaster for just one second?” Jakier drags a hand down his face. “What happened to the whole— _oh, silly Jaskier,_ _if I wanted to have sex with you, you’d know_ —thing?”

“I’ll admit that I’m usually a bit more direct,” she says, smirking, “but you’re just so adorable when you’re flustered.”

A ragged laugh bubbles out of his throat. He searches his memory, trying to discover the exact moment that he became catnip for magic-poisoned immortals with strange eyes.

“Yes,” says Yennefer, “like that,” and then she lowers the vial, jerks him down by the collar, and kisses him.

Jaskier lets out a shrill, helpless sound. She is unrelenting, thorough, biting at his bottom lip with enough force to sting. Her nails dig into the base of his neck. A wild, avaricious part of him prays that she leaves marks.

Yennefer breaks the kiss first, leaving Jaskier wavering drunkenly on his feet. 

“Calm yourself, bard,” she says, swaying the vial. Tiny shards of crystal tumble inside, like glittering sea salt. “Drugs first.”

“Just to clarify—drugs first before  _ sex _ , right?”

She nods. “The effects should be short-lived,” she says. “A good thing, too—I want you sober when I use your tongue.”

Jaskier chuckles weakly. His face heats. “Fuck.”

Yennefer lays a hand on his shoulder. She presses down with strength she shouldn’t have, and he falls easily, gratefully, to his knees.

“It’ll be like this,” she says, sliding her hand to his hair. “ _ Just _ this. I’m not going to reciprocate.” She tilts her head. “Does that suit you?”

“Gods, Yennefer,” he says, hoarse. “You know it does.”

“What a selfless man,” she says, in a pleased purr that nearly knocks him dead.

Yennefer tugs him up, and he stands, unsteadily, not bothering to hide it when he adjusts his trousers.

They drag a pair of chairs to the balcony. Yennefer’s hair is loose, unruly strands twitching in the breeze. Jaskier thinks of pins, held gently between her teeth, and the sharp points of her nails. He rubs his neck.

Yennefer motions for him to sit and uncorks the vial, sweeping a finger through the crystals. Jaskier settles into the chair. His heartbeat pulses in his ears.

She looms over him, hovering a crystal-coated finger above his mouth. “Open.”

Jaskier’s lips part obediently. His body burns, and he wonders if it would be polite to warn her that she’s turned his insides molten.

Yennefer sinks her finger under his tongue. Her thumb strokes the edge of his lip. “Good,” she breathes.

She holds him there, slack-jawed. The crystals are tasteless, so Jaskier focuses on the faint salt of her skin, the bitterness of lilac with a sugared edge. Too soon, she pulls free, dosing herself with a clean finger before lounging in the opposite chair. The wind flutters her skirt, showing the smooth lines of her calves, the intricate construction of her tall, black boots.

“Give it a moment,” she says, toying with the charm on her choker.

Aretuza’s gloomy towers float on the horizon, just beyond her shoulder.

“Yennefer,” he says, his arousal twisting into a new, nervous shape, “do you think the world is ending?”

“And there it is,” she sighs.

“No, I’ve been thinking about this a lot.” Jaskier runs his fingertips over his lower lip. “I feel like—when birds in the street see you coming, and they flap out of the way of your shoes, but they just land directly in front of you, so you catch up again and then they fly a little more—I feel like that.”

“You feel like a pigeon?” asks Yennefer.

“No, I feel like  _ all _ of it,” he says. “The bird and the boot.” He shakes his head. “Wow. It might be working, actually.”

Yennefer stares at the sea, into the blush of fading sunlight. “It’s a rotten world,” she says. “It could end.”

“I think,” says Jaskier, the words syrupy in his mouth, “I think that most things could end.”

He blinks, and Yennefer’s skin fractures into a collage of amethyst and diamond and obsidian. His twinge of worry is swallowed up by an endless wave of awe.

“Does that hurt?” he asks, mindlessly, as the harsh-carved facets catch the light.

She snorts, softly, just the hint of a laugh. “What do you see, Jaskier?”

“Just you,” he says.

Rivers of translucent stone shift in Yennefer’s face. Violet and black and silver, twining and untwining. “No, it doesn’t hurt,” she says.

Jaskier’s mouth twitches into an involuntary smile. “That’s good,” he says. “I’m glad I found you here, before the apocalypse starts.”

“That’s dramatic,” scoffs Yennefer. “It’s just a war.”

Jaskier absorbs her derision with fondness. He wants to open his ribs and store her incredulous glances inside them. “What do you see, Yennefer?”

She regards him, pupils blown. “A foolish little bird.”

Jaskier whistles in a rough imitation of birdsong, and she laughs properly, then, with creased eyes and glinting teeth. Her amusement drips over him like honey, sliding from the crown of his skull to the soles of his feet, enveloping him in a slow, viscous euphoria.

“Holy gods,” he murmurs, stunned. “I want you to do that forever.”

His experience, after that, is incoherent: he is fuzzily aware of being simultaneously peaceful and remarkably turned on, dropping to his knees again, unprompted, and laying his head in Yennefer’s lap. He rides out the high with her hands in his hair, the touch both searing and soothing, while his skin vibrates and galaxies sprout behind his eyes. Yennefer’s estimation was correct—by the time he comes to, squinting blearily upwards, the sky is soft and starless, not long past sunset.

It can’t have lasted more than half an hour, but his body, a wound-tight bundle of flickering nerves, insists that he’s been hard for days.

“Welcome back, Jaskier,” says Yennefer, smoothing the hair behind his ear.

“Hello,” he croaks. “Whatever theory you had, I think we proved it.”

“That wasn’t the only theory I’ve been testing,” she says, sliding to the edge of the chair.

“Is that so,” says Jaskier, breathless.

Yennefer spreads her legs. Her skirt drapes to her ankles, but the suggestion of her knees shifting apart under the fabric is enough to make him dizzy.

She traces a nail down the side of his neck. “Are you with me, little bird?”

“Yes,” he says. “Please.” He bites the inside of his cheek.

Yennefer lifts her skirt.

She’s bare underneath—a choice she’d made, an  _ expectation _ , and it shakes him. Her dark pubic hair is neatly trimmed, leading to the glistening center of her, and Jaskier has been between enough legs to recognize a woman’s arousal; she’s flushed and slick, and his mouth waters.

“Gods,” he says, before bending to kiss along her thigh.

“None of that,” she says, twisting her unforgiving grip in his hair. “I’m impatient, Jaskier.”

The pinpricks of pain make his cock twitch. He lists forward, licks delicately along her outer folds.

Yennefer squeezes her fist, driving nails into his scalp. “What did I just say?”

He glances up. Her eyes are narrowed, demanding, but her lips are crooked in a confident smile. Part of the game, then.

Jaskier flattens his tongue and laps broad, heavy strokes up her slit. Yennefer lets out a long gust of breath, tilting her hips towards his mouth. He revels in her taste, a warm, dense blend of copper and salt, dripping messily over his chin. Her bitten sighs and quiet curses strike him like lightning. 

She strains against his lips, and he tongues circles around her clit, but she crowds forward so that he can do little more than work his jaw to press his tongue against her, keeping a rhythm that aches, chokes him exquisitely. Yennefer grinds hard, urging his face impossibly close, thighs crushing his ears, and he’s barely moving, now, just drowning, used only for his tongue, for his mouth, for  _ her _ .

“That’s it,” she croons, “ _ good _ boy.”

He could die like this. Happily.

Yennefer’s breath quickens. A few more harsh thrusts, and she groans, thighs twitching, shuddering through her release. Jaskier can’t stifle his answering moan. He channels his need into action, still licking and mouthing, drifting in a blissful daze. Yennefer pulls him back, and he mourns, a little, drawing his swollen bottom lip into his mouth.

“You did very well,” she says, which is enough to make his cock jump again, the words landing like a physical touch. He’s close to coming, he realizes; closer than he’d thought possible. He sucks down a shaking breath.

Yennefer runs fingertips over the shell of his ear, his jaw, then through the mess on his lips, dipping between them just long enough to gift him with another taste of her skin. “Did you enjoy yourself, little bird?”

Jaskier tries to wrestle words from his stupefied mind. He manages to find “yes”, so he repeats it, a few times, resting his forehead against her knee.

Yennefer sets a hand on his shoulder. “Sit up.”

He obeys, shuffling back and staring up at her flushed face, haloed by the night’s first stars.

She lifts her boot, brushing his inner thigh with the heel. “Is there something you need, Jaskier?”

The faint touch rips his brain to shreds. “I—fuck, I—please,” he babbles.

It wouldn’t take much—he’s not above begging. His pulse races.

Slowly, carefully, Yennefer presses the sole of her boot against his clothed cock.

Jaskier whines, starts to ramble. “Fuck, gods—Yennefer, please,  _ please _ .” He flexes his hips, thrusts restricted by his trousers, and—he’s rushing to a rapid peak, he’s going to come, he’s going to come grinding against Yennefer’s boot. White heat flares in his body.

“This look flatters you,” murmurs Yennefer. “So desperate, all for me. My pretty boy.”

The praise slithers under his skin, clenches tight, and he breaks. 

Jaskier comes with a thin, throaty moan, long delayed pleasure hitting him in a near-violent rush. He slumps forward, palms on his knees, chest heaving. Yennefer removes her boot, trades it for a hand to cup his cheek.

“And how was  _ that _ theory?” she asks, sly.

“Proven,” he wheezes, “very well proven. Beyond any reasonable doubt.”

“Hm,” she says. “Not something one could present to the Brotherhood, I’m afraid.”

Jaskier snorts. “Fuck them.”

They rest together, Jaskier kneeling at Yennefer’s feet, grounded by Yennefer’s steady hand. His anxieties, numerous and wily, nip at his heels; he drives them away by gritting his jaw, relishing the ache. When the tackiness in his trousers is too much to bear, he changes clothes and retrieves a bottle of wine from the bar. They pass the bottle, not bothering with glasses. 

The night is velvet-dark with clouds. A few struggling stars pierce the cover.

“I’m going to Aretuza tomorrow,” says Yennefer, overly nonchalant. “Time to stop avoiding the damn place, I think.”

“Sounds miserable,” says Jaskier, slouching lazily in his chair. “I wish you luck.”

A cloud shifts, painting them both with a stark beam of moonlight.

Yennefer’s lip quirks. “Thank you,” she says. “I’m sure I’ll need it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Drug use: Yennefer gives Jaskier something that acts like a mild hallucinogen. This is inspired by whatever the hell "rhwydwaith carthion" is supposed to be in episode 7 of the Netflix show. They bond over the development of a different drug (the chemistry was vaguely inspired by the synthesis of MDMA, but the effects are made up). Yennefer and Jaskier take the new drug together. More hallucinations, some euphoria. They sober up before they have sex.
> 
> Dom/sub undertones: Jaskier gets off on being ordered around and/or praised by Yennefer. She picks up on this, so when they have sex, she takes a mildly dominant role: forcing him to kneel, ordering him around a tiny bit, indulging the praise kink, and making him get off in a mildly uncomfortable way (under her shoe). It isn't really negotiated well, and they do take drugs beforehand, but they are both sober for the actual sex, and the entirety of the encounter is consensual.


End file.
